What right-wing conservatives want you to forget…
I’ve always said true conservatism has its place. In our haste to polarize the country’s political discourse, progressives give conservatives a bad name and vice versa. But putting the brakes on really radical ideas in order to study their consequences, so often lacking in wild-eyed progressives, especially one-issue voters, is a sane course. The law of unintended consequences applies to both conservative and progressive thinkers, of course, because not changing something might have worse consequences than changing it. “Making progress” implies striving to make things better, not worse. Logic and reason, also so often missing in today’s political discourse, seemed to be more prevalent in our nation’s history, probably because the media didn’t have as much reach and was less into sensationalism.
All that said, Daily KOS, who has become my least favorite progressive newsletter (being blindly for Hillary Clinton is hardly being progressive—the Clinton machine is a throwback to Tammany Hall and the Daley machine in Chicago), came out with an interesting list of items current conservatives would rather have people ignore in “Independence Day Special: A Dozen Facts About America Conservatives Would Like You to Forget” by Richard Riis. The 4th is already past but the conventions are upon us, police brutality issues and the Dallas murderer are now part of our bloody history, so these points might still be interesting. Here they are with my comments:
Conservatives opposed the Founding Fathers, the American Revolution and a lot of other righteous stuff as well. The nation’s Fathers were radicals, pure and simple, and stealthily planned the whole thing. Their lofty ideals, while noble, sprung from the onerous financial situation of the colonies. The militias (the only ones the Founding Fathers wanted to guarantee arms to—they’re now our National Guards) were terrorists as far as the Brits were concerned. They hid behind trees and took potshots at the Redcoats in Lexington and Concord. The true conservatives in the colonies were called Tories and swore allegiance to King George.
The United States is not a Christian nation, and the Bible is not the cornerstone of our law. The author has quotes from the Founding Fathers, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington, to prove his point. I’d add that Thomas Paine was an atheist. Some readers might argue that none of them were Buddhists, Jews, or Muslims. That’s missing the point. These radicals who founded our country wanted nothing to do with a theocracy and wanted a secular society where the word of law was dictated by logic and reason, not emotional interpretations based on personal faith and belief, so often distorted by despots and murderers for their own personal gains.
Long before the United States even existed, it was drawing “problem” immigrants. Those Pilgrims at that first Thanksgiving (a holiday Jefferson deplored, by the way) wanted a theocracy that was basically communistic—all sharing of goods and wealth restricted to the “true believers,” of course. They were chased out of several European countries because they refused to blend in. Their strict theocratic insanity is still plaguing us—many citizens from many states in the U.S. still suffer from those blue laws, and the violent era of Prohibition has its roots in the Pilgrims’ dogma.
Those Pilgrims were commies…and it saved their lives. I already said that. They wouldn’t have survived that brutal first year if they hadn’t shared the pain. The one-percenters came later (not much later, though—a lot of them were Tories).
One of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, hated Thanksgiving. I already said that too. Here’s the quote, though: “Everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.” Jackson and Taylor also refused to issue Thanksgiving Day proclamations. From the author of the article: “Can you imagine what Fox News Channel would have made of these administrations’ ‘War on Thanksgiving’?”
The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist. Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and Christian socialist and cousin of socialist utopian novelist Edward Bellamy, wrote the Pledge. Christian socialism maintains that capitalism is idolatrous and rooted in greed, and the underlying cause of much of the world’s social inequity—except for the idolatrous part, which smacks of theocratic tendencies, the rest of the definition works pretty well in general. It’s a lot more humane than the Pilgrims’ communism, though, which was reserved just for that sect’s anointed.
Roe v. Wade was a bipartisan decision made by a predominantly Republican-appointed Supreme Court. The landmark 1973 ruling that conservatives love to hate, was decided on a 7-2 vote. For conservatives, that belies the idea that pro-choice is some kind of radical feminist plot. For progressives, it belies the idea that pro-lifers are old men trying to control women’s bodies. And for all legislation and court cases that have come after, it’s a broad reaffirmation of women’s rights when the implications are considered, not just the ruling.
Conservative icon Ronald Reagan once signed a bill legalizing abortion. As much as the communist-hunter was adored by conservatives for trying and largely succeeding to destroy the University of California, during his first term of governor there he signed a bill that legalized abortion. OK, he claimed later to regret that as he pandered to the religious right for their votes, but it’s in the record books.
Reagan also raised federal taxes eleven times. Most of his famed cuts, so loved by conservatives, favored one-percenters, of course. He raised them for everyone else. That’s been the policy of the GOP for a long time, so don’t ever listen to what the lips say. (That touches on another point the author of the article missed: the GOP isn’t the party of Lincoln anymore—its racist roots stem from Reconstruction, and it always amazed me the South didn’t go Republican long ago.)
Barry Goldwater was pro-choice, supported gay rights, deeply despised the Religious Right, and – gasp! – liked Hillary Clinton. While old Barry was one scary dude only surpassed by scarier dude Donald Trump, Goldwater is often called Mr. Conservative. He was certainly before his time and a voice in the Arizona desert that is echoing there today big time (Arizona is as red as those Sedona rocks). And maybe the latter explains why he lost so badly? People just ignored him.
The first president to propose national health insurance was a Republican. Horrors! He was a trust-busting, pro-labor, Nobel Peace Prize-winning environmentalist too. Theodore Roosevelt was the last progressive Republican (and maybe in the spirit of Lincoln?); he proposed national health insurance during his unsuccessful Progressive Party campaign to retake the White House from William Howard Taft in 1912. The present GOP treats him like Voldemort—he whose name shall not be mentioned! (That’s almost as sad as calling themselves the party of Lincoln, who’s probably turning over in his grave.)
Those “job-killing” environmental regulations? Republican things. Theodore Roosevelt is the culprit again. He used the bully pulpit to push through many advances to preserve America’s natural environment. Of course, he was also a big game hunter—where was PETA when we needed them? The EPA, however, was created by Nixon, who also sponsored many environmental bills that Congress approved. I disagree with the author of the article about Nixon’s proposing national health insurance, though. He confabulated with Kaiser (CA) to push the HMO idea, which was really a give-away to Big Pharma and health insurance companies, figuring that would be a big business—it was, and still is, thanks to Obamacare (single payer is the only way to control the greed of those companies).
President Obama was not only born in the United States, his roots run deeper in American history than most conservatives’ – and most other Americans’ – do. Trump came to prominence with his birther rants that had no reason or logic, evidenced by his mouthing off even after Obama’s birth certificate from the Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. Worse for conservatives and something they will never acknowledge is that Mr. Obama has a better pedigree than most of them via his Dunham lineage.
As the author of the article points out, he has at least 11 direct ancestors fought for in the Revolutionary War and two others cited as patriots by the Daughters of the American Revolution for furnishing supplies to the colonial army. This star-spangled heritage makes Obama eligible to join the Sons of the American Revolution, and his daughters the Daughters of the American Revolution. “Not bad for someone some conservatives on the lunatic fringe still insist is a foreigner bent on destroying the United States of America,” states the author of the article. I agree.
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And so it goes….
